Gestures

Gestures, by definition, transmit signals, and these signals must come across clearly if we are to understand their messages. They cannot afford to be vague and woolly; they must be crisp and sharp and difficult to confuse with other signals. To do this they have to develop a «typical form» that shows comparatively little variation. And they must be performed with a «typical intensity», showing much the same speed, strength and amplitude on each occasion that they are brought into action.

It is rather like the ringing of a telephone bell. The signal goes on sounding at fixed intervals, at a fixed volume, and with a fixed sound, no matter how urgent the call. No-one confuses a telephone bell with a front-door bell or an alarm clock. Its fixed form and its fixed intensity make it unmistakable.

The process is at work in human gestures. When an angry man shakes his fist, the chances are that the speed, force and amplitude of each shake, as the fist jerks back and forth in mid-air, are much the same on each occasion that he employs this gesture. And there is a reasonable likelihood that his speed, force and amplitude will be sim­ilar to those of any other fist-shaker. If, as an experiment, you were to perform a fist-shaking gesture in which you slowed down the

movement, decreased the force, and increased the distance travelled by the clenched fist, it is doubtful if your signal would be unders­tood. An onlooker might imagine you were exercising your arm, but it is doubtful if he would read the message as a threat display.

Most of our gestures have grown into typical presentations of this kind. We all wave in much the same way, clap our hands at roughly the same speed, beckon with much the same amplitude and shake our heads with much the same rhythm. This is not a conscious process. We simply tune in to the cultural norm. Unwittingly, we smooth the parh of the hundreds of tiny messages that fly between us whenever we meet and interact. Somehow we manage to match up our gestures with those of our companions, and they do the same with ours. Together we all synchronise the intensities of our gestur­ing until we are all operating in concert, as if under the control of an invisible cultural conductor.

As always with human behaviour there are exceptions to this general rule. We are not automatons. We show personal idiosyncra­sies — individual variations on the cultural themes. One man, with a particularly fine set of teeth, shows an exaggeratedly intense, open-lipped smile, and he does this even in mild situations. Another man, with bad teeth, gives a more closed smile, even when strongly stimu­lated. One man bellows with laughter, while another titters, in reac­tion to the same joke. These are Gesture Variants, and they provide each of us with a behavioural «style», or body personality. They are small differences compared with our general gesture-conformity, but they can become important persona! labels none the less.

Now choose the answer from the multiple choice items:

What do successful gestures have in common?

A speed

В clarity

С intensity

D style

What characteristics do successful gestures share with telephone bells?

A They go on for a long time.

В It is not usual to mistake what they mean.

С They are repeated regularly.

D People know they must be responded to.

A fist-shaking gesture might cause confusion if

A the gesture didn't have the right rhythm.

В the person failed to synchronise his movement with those around him.

С the person also shook his head.

D the gesture was unusual for that particular person. According to the passage, what makes people develop similar gestures? A the need to be liked В the desire to be part of a particular culture С the need to facilitate communication D the conscious desire to be like other people